Google Book

WEDNESDAY WEB WRAP-UP for January 31, 2007

A year or so ago, I featured Google Book as the Wrap-up. Much has changed since then. Partner libraries in addition to Harvard include Stanford, the University of Michigan, the University of Texas, the New York Public Library and Oxford University. You may now limit your searches to those books available in full text (using advanced search). As such, you won’t need to deal with what can be frustrating, separating the snippets and excerpts from what is fully available. Recently, Google also added a feature by which some titles may be downloaded and saved for reading at a later time.

So imagine you are visiting the rare collection areas of Google’s library partners. While browsing at the University of Michigan, you noted an original report made by Wilbur Wright to the Smithsonian in regards to his and his brother's flight at Kitty Hawk. At Stanford you found and paged through the 1902 periodical, the Horseless Age. And … at Harvard, you read an article from the 1904 book, The College Girl of America. In it, you learned that back in the day, Morningside College’s fastest sprinter, who happened to be a woman could not represent the College at an Iowa state intercollegiate track meet because of her gender. I found all of these in Google Book.

Visit a virtual rare books collection by clicking here >>> http://books.google.com/advanced_book_search

Jim